“And was she?” Sadie asked, already chuckling into her wine glass.
“She was teaching piano lessons and ordering sheet music through the post,” Ellie finished triumphantly. “Meanwhile, our budding Sherlock Holmes spent three weeks taking detailed notes about her ‘suspicious activities’ and even followed the postman to see if he was involved in the conspiracy.”
“I was being thorough,” Corbyn protested, his cheeks warming. “And her lesson schedule was unusually irregular.”
“Because she taught school children in the evenings,” Ellie pointed out. “Which you would have discovered if you’d simply asked instead of launching a full surveillance operation.”
Sadie burst into delighted laughter. Corbyn felt warmth spreading through his chest at the sound, and he was sure it had little to do with the wine.
“Well, that certainly explains your choice of writing genre,” she said, grinning at Corbyn. “You’ve been plotting mysteries since you were fifteen.”
“I prefer to think of it as early research,” Corbyn replied with mock dignity, which only made both women laugh harder, Sadie’s smile causing a flutter in his chest. “And I think that’s enough stories, Eleanor.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes in his direction, and he couldn’t stop the satisfied smirk that formed on his lips. As much as he detested her old nickname for him, he knew she hated the use of her full name even more.
“Do you have any siblings, Sadie?” Ellie asked, turning her attention away from Corbyn. “Any annoying older brothers back home?”
“A younger one, actually,” Sadie said, although there was fondness in her eyes. “My little brother Lucas definitely kept meon my toes. I’m five years older than him, so keeping him out of trouble fell to me a lot of the time.”
Taking a sip of his wine, Corbyn saw the soft look on Sadie’s face while she talked about her brother. It was clear the siblings had been close growing up, much like he and Ellie.
“He’s also the reason I go by Sadie,” she continued, pausing to sip her own wine. “He couldn’t pronounce Alessandra when he was little, and it came out sounding like Alesadie, which my parents shortened to Sadie, and… it stuck.”
Corbyn froze with his wine glass halfway to his lips. Alessandra. His fingers went numb against the stem. The restaurant’s chatter faded to a dull hum as blood rushed to his ears. That name was confirmation of something he hadn’t dared to allow himself to hope for. Fifteen years of wondering about the girl with gray eyes and red hair on the Underground, and here she sat across from him, laughing with his sister. His chest tightened as memories crystallized: her hand brushing his on the metal pole, that electric current he’d never felt with anyone else, the way her smile had started in just one corner of her mouth exactly as it did now.
Ellie was watching him with growing concern, her own glass suspended in midair as she took in his expression.
Sadie noticed the sudden tension immediately, her gaze moving between the siblings with growing confusion.
“Is everything alright?”
“Fine,” Corbyn said quickly, his voice rough. He cleared his throat, setting the glass back on the table. “Just… surprised you have such an unusual name. Alessandra’s beautiful.”
“It’s Italian,” Sadie explained slowly, still looking puzzled. “My grandmother was very insistent about preserving family traditions, even though that side of my family had been in America for three generations by then.”
“How lovely,” Ellie managed, though her voice sounded strained. “Family traditions are important.”
Corbyn was only half listening as the conversation continued. His mind was reeling, trying to remember all the signs he had ignored. When Sadie excused herself to visit the loo, Ellie immediately leaned across the table.
“Corbyn?” she whispered urgently. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What just happened?”
“I’ve met her before,” he said quietly, his voice barely audible. Ellie’s eyes narrowed in confusion, so he continued, “Fifteen years ago, I had just graduated from university, and I was living here in the city. I was on my way to a party and I met an American girl on the Tube named Alessandra.”
“Wait, isn’t that the girl you prattled on about in your journal?” Ellie breathed, her eyes bright with amazement. “This isn’t a coincidence, Corbyn. This is fate. You have to tell her!”
“You read my journal?” Corbyn’s eyes narrowed, his whisper gaining a bit of an edge. Between his sister and Edie, he had no hope of ever keeping anything a secret.
“Of course I did, I’m your sister,” Ellie responded, waving it off like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to have done. “You’ve been pining for her ever since. You have to tell her.”
“Firstly, I don’t pine,” Corbyn said desperately, glancing toward the direction Sadie had gone. “Secondly, she just ended a relationship with a man who would use anything at his disposal to manipulate her feelings. What if she thinks that’s what I’m trying to do?”
“Or maybe she’ll see how it explains everything,” Ellie countered. “You two are perfect together. And tonight, watching you two…” She shook her head, leaning forward, and she enunciated each word, “You have to tell her.”
“When the time is right,” Corbyn said firmly. “If there is a right time. This is too important to handle poorly.”
Ellie studied his face, and he could see her trying to formulate her next argument, but Sadie reappeared at the table. She slipped back into her seat with a smile that made Corbyn’s pulse thrum with a mix of longing and fear.
They finished dinner as the restaurant began to empty around them, conversation flowing easily once more. As they gathered their coats and stepped out into the crisp London evening, Corbyn found himself hyperaware of every glance Sadie cast his direction. There were several times she even started to say something before changing her mind.
